With all the concern about micro plastic in our water and pretty much everything now, maybe there’s less enthusiasm for it, especially something that degrades into the environment

[–] Floofah 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The disposal of waste, especially plastic, is a real issue. I heard recently that up here in Northland, land-fill is still the most used method.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I’m sure that’s the case too. Doesn’t most of our recycling consist of shipping it off overseas still?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

~~No, I believe it's almost none now.~~ Edit: I may be wrong about this. We can recycle 1, 2, and 5 in NZ but I can't find good data on what proportion is actually done in NZ. Articles written a few years ago talk about lots still going overseas, but there has also been new regulation in the past few years to prevent "low quality" plastics being exported, so this may have changed. Here is a page that lists everything except metals being processed in NZ for Wellington City, but it may be different in other parts of the country.

1, 2, and 5 plastics can be recycled in NZ.

If your council accepts 3, 4, 6, or 7, they are going to landfill, no exceptions. I think most now will say they don't take them, but I've read a while back that some councils say they take them to make things easier for people, then they sort them out during processing and send them to landfill.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Huh interesting, I just checked our council and they take 1-7, but they just send 3, 4, 6 & 7 to landfill. Good info, thanks. Hopefully they sort something out for the rest soon.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Those plastics are harder to recycle. It would be better to stop using them. I purposely avoid buying things that aren't in 1,2, or 5.

Now if you're really keen, you can recycle almost anything. But it's super expensive. But just in case: https://zerowasteboxes.terracycle.co.nz/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Remember when people used to be concerned about plastic bags because they can take a long time to break down? Turns out they were breaking down into smaller pieces of plastic, so in reality they weren't "breaking down" at all as people would have imagined.

Future generations are going to look back at us like we look back at the Ancient Romans. They knew lead made you crazy yet they still used it for their aqueducts. We are gonna get that same look of disbelief from future school kids.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s crazy right, I feel the people who had developed the plastics would be well aware it’s not it’s not actually breaking down.

I did read awhile back they were finding micro plastics literally everywhere now. I wonder if we can develop some bacteria or insect that can digest plastic. I remember someone was doing something with mealworms and styrofoam or similar

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

So it sounds like a good plan, except one thing: the lack of microbes breaking it down is exactly what makes it useful. If you have a microbe breaking down plastic into an organic, then it won't be long before you jump in your car and the plastic parts of the engine have been eaten by the microbe. We will end up having to develop a new substance that doesn't break down.

I think we should be focusing our efforts into moving most things away from using plastic. We should focus on developing non-plastic products that can take the place of plastic for short term/single use places, so plastic can stay useful for longer term uses.